AN OBJECT IN MOTION

The spirit of creativity does not move in those who stay frozen; momentum maintains flow.

I have been wrapping my mind around the concept of creative momentum. I find structure gives me a way to move, to continue moving forward — not even in a direction, really, but just moving. When I had time off between jobs, I told myself I needed to make one thing with my hands each week. I began making incense, crafting, drying herbs. It was a loose enough commitment to keep.

I have been thinking about going all-in on creative structure. I wrote a newsletter draft earlier this week, was absolutely thrilled to finally write out the words that had been bouncing around my mind for ages. And when I wrote the words I didn’t like them, so I didn’t send the newsletter. A few days later I thought to myself, what if I had to send out a newsletter. What if I sat down, wrote a few pages of shit, and had to send out a newsletter anyway? Would I challenge myself to find something salvageable and shareable from the mess, or would I move in a whole new direction?

I don’t know right now, because I closed my draft and decided it wasn’t ready to share with the world. Which I stand by, but also it stunted my writing for a few days. My momentum stalled.

Part of the stagnation is having all the expressive eggs in one basket. A newsletter is a container. A column is a set number of words. I found myself playing with color this week as a part of a class I’m in, and it’s been where my conductivity has been channeled. But sharing a bunch of colors didn’t feel complete either. And I’m finding I have to move through completion.

1. Work can be finished temporarily. Sharing does not mean it is in its final state.

2. Sharing is an experiment. Better to test the waters for resonance periodically than cause a deluge on the wrong target.

3. Sometimes ideas need rest.

4. Sometimes ideas need to meet the outside world, instead of being smothered by my internal critic.

Thinking about ideas as anthropomorphic beings — as Elizabeth Gilbert explains in Big Magic — is a way to get over this fear of the static. It is terrifying to share something and know it cannot be edited or changed, that it may very well show up in years of your Google results. I have yet to regret sharing creative work, if I really think about it. Sharing isn’t always rewarded, and there are emotions or thoughts I have regretted sharing due to the response, but I haven’t ever regretted any work I’ve put out there. And if I have, I didn’t regret the work itself, just the circumstances of the share.

It is harder to rationalize away the terror when your emotions and creativity are tied up in one. When your creative output is a personal essay, or memoir. I feel like I’m sharing me, and with that comes all sorts of lizard brain fears about being ostracized and rejected. Looking at even very personal work as its own being can create a resilience buffer. But in some ways separating work from the artist feels sacrilegious. Artists pour their livelihood into their art, right? Their very life force is rendered on the canvas, the loom, the page.

Which also sets up the artist to be depleted, sapped of strength, sacrificing all of their identity in order to fucking create. And it’s easy for that to spiral to neglecting the self. Thinking of the artist as a channel, a medium for the spirit of creativity (a la Julia Cameron) removes the constant scooping of the inner world for consumption. The spirit of creativity does not move in those who stay frozen; momentum maintains flow.

I have many ways to create, that I pick up or put down at anytime. It could be characterized as flightiness, indecision, and I certainly have used my varied interests to beat myself up over the years, as evidence that I am unable to “do the work.” Another way to look at it is when I get stuck, I find another way to move. Finding a way to move through blocks is a skill I’m developing — see above tale of woe — and I hear a part of myself insisting that I’m just distracting myself from my true craft. I am reading The Creative Habit again (at least my third attempt to get through the text) and so much of it doesn’t resonate. Twyla Tharp pushes for unrelenting dedication, casually citing her lack of attachment and family as a compromise she had to make in order to become the choreographer she was meant to be. She discusses distraction, or pursuing possible paths instead of focusing on one. And reading this gives that voice in my head some justification to yell See? You’re just sabotaging yourself and showing a lack of commitment. You are weak and will never create something.

The book has a lot of helpful advice too, it’s just delivered in the voice of someone who has managed to perfect the judgmental tone of my inner critic and use it to write a bestseller. Ick. Reading this book is a challenge in discernment, of taking what works and leaving the rest. Not only leaving, but utterly forgetting.

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I originally typed this newsletter and titled it KEEP IT MOVING. Over the weekend I finished The Creative Habit, after two years, and saw also how Tharp balances some aspects of creative diversification. Her next book is also called Keep It Moving. Maybe I passively absorbed this information and it lodged in my brain somewhere, emerging in this essay. Forward momentum.

IN THE VIEWFINDER

1. I have a list of plants I am checking on now as I walk through the neighborhood, gauging their blooming process: magnolia, Japanese honeysuckle, my own dahlias and California poppies. I think I killed my lavender.

2. I have been analyzing my collected images through the lens of color, and it has been a delight. Next, sometime, I want to analyze their similarities by shape.

3. I gave my first live radio interview yesterday and it was terrifying. First I told myself there was nothing to be anxious about, and then that felt like denial so I instead told myself it was normal to feel anxious about something I’ve never done before, and despite it being new and scary it will be okay. I then locked myself in the bathroom, poured myself zhourat with rosemary, grabbed selenite to fiddle with and wrapped myself in a fuzzy blanket. The interview was less than five minutes and was fine! I stayed on the floor watching TikToks for an hour afterward. I am doing myself a kindness by not listening to the interview or sharing it for a little bit longer — allowing the tenderness to tide over.

4. I put together an image for my grandfather’s memorial and realized that whichever font I chose will forever become the font I used for my grandfather’s memorial. (Moderat: a solid, easily legible sans-serif.)

May you move in a creative direction today and maintain your momentum. Tell me how and I will celebrate you!

Jasmine